Is proof of work really only there as a way to distribute coins initially, or does it also rely on it for timing the blocks, that is, to try to make average time between blocks meet some target duration? I am wondering whether one could turn off proof of work entirely to make a purely proof of stake coin and use some other method of distributing coins initially. (Even maybe something as simple as getting a hundred or few hundred people lined up as initial stakeholders and dividing the total number of coins to them as initial stakeholders right from the start.)

Hmm if there is a minimum stake level though, maybe adjusted like difficulty, the maximum number of proof of stake blocks that could be generated would be however many times that minimum the total number of coins existing happens to be at that time.

For example if there are 21 million coins and minimum stake of 21, the clients could refuse to relay any blocks containing less than 21 stake thus would not have to deal with more than one million proof of stake block candidates in any one block-timespan.

If stake takes time to be useable, like generated coins, then you also get to divide again by say 120 if its 120 blocks, or the 500 or whatever that PPCoin makes stake wait before being unusable.

coin price is crashing can not mine on the network because getwork takes 30s and the difficulty won't adjust fast enough because balthazar set it at a max of 1% per block... this is especially bad for the pool which is getting stales above 50%. the coin is basically dead in the water hours after its release.

coin price is crashing can not mine on the network because getwork takes 30s and the difficulty won't adjust fast enough because balthazar set it at a max of 1% per block... this is especially bad for the pool which is getting stales above 50%. the coin is basically dead in the water hours after its release.

Sorry, but it looks like typical "End of the World 21/12/12" prophecy. Everything and everyone will be dead (except of undeads, of course ), even Bitcoin. But it still have a sense to exists, because it can change something in our world.

coin price is crashing can not mine on the network because getwork takes 30s and the difficulty won't adjust fast enough because balthazar set it at a max of 1% per block... this is especially bad for the pool which is getting stales above 50%. the coin is basically dead in the water hours after its release.

Sorry, but it looks like typical "End of the World 21/12/12" prophecy. Everything and everyone will be dead (except of undeads, of course ), even Bitcoin. But it still have a sense to exists, because it can change something in our world.